The Outkast member said that he’s “always recording,” even while performing on the small and big screen. “I still get time to think about music. [Shooting TV and film projects] is not so bad – it kind of puts you in the place where you’re fiending to do music,” he told Billboard. “I’ve been holding [back] for a long time, so now I’m really interested in figuring out some type of music to do.”

While he wouldn’t reveal details on what he’s working on or with whom, he expressed wanting to put out a music project, and added that he’s been listening to Thelonious Monk and is a fan of Kid Cudi’s Speedin’ Bullet 2 Heaven, which he said “is awesome to me. That’s kind of like the most recent thing that I think is really great. But other than that I’ve kind of just been working in the studio and listening to what I’m doing.”

Andre 3000 surprised fans last month when he appeared on Badu’s But You Caint Use My Phone, a telephone-themed mixtape. The track, “Hello,” is its final song. He said it was inspired by a 1970s cover. “Our son Seven and I were trying to figure out songs that could help her – songs that were related to the subject of the mixtape: phones. We came across [the Isley Brothers 1974 cover of Todd Rundgren’s] ‘Hello, it’s Me.’ Ron Isley repeats the phrase ‘hello, hello’ as if he was answering the phone.

“I told Erykah, ‘You should make this into a new song and get somebody to rap on it.’ She was like, “Well you should rap on it’,” he explained. “It was a great reunion because I don’t think people have heard a song from us in ages.”